In the Forests of the Night
by Iridescent Individual
Summary: If nothing else, Dean is pretty sure he'll go down in history for being the only person ever to get stuck in purgatory with a crazy angel.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Because I just watched the finale, and it had to be written. And because the title practically lent itself to the situation.**** And it turned out a bit gloomier than intended, but there isn't another fitting way to end it.**

If nothing else, Dean is pretty sure he'll go down in history for being the only person ever to get stuck in purgatory with a crazy angel, while they're still alive (at least, they are for now).

He's alone at first. Not literally, at first, because Cas has the courtesy to wait until he's awake to pull a disappearing act, but for the first hour/day/week. He can't really keep track of time here, since he's always tired and always hungry and always running. And the sun never rises and the skies never change, if the endless expanse of black above them could ever qualify as a sky.

It doesn't take him long to start running. He has no weapons, no way to fight, no idea what he'd even be fighting. But the hissing, snarling, circling monsters with red eyes don't seem to give him great odds, even if he could see properly. Which he can't, really, but when he thinks about it (which he tries not to) he shouldn't be able to see at all, because there's no light source save for the glowing red eyes that are everywhere.

He's running from those same eyes, panting for breath and as desperate as ever when something, someone grabs his arm. He instinctively pulls away, ready to fight it before seeing that it is, in fact, Castiel. Sitting against a tree, staring at some point out into the blackness.

"Cas." He doesn't ask the angel why he left, before. He's not even sure Cas could answer. The angel's still not all there. But he's glad that someone is there with him, besides the monsters.

"Dean." Castiel responds, still not making eye contact, but acknowledging his presence. "There aren't any monkeys here."

He's caught off guard, but he should have expected it. Cas's brain doesn't seem to be great at prioritizing.

"No, there aren't," he agrees, "But Cas, we gotta get out of here. They'll be coming."

"They're everywhere," is the response after a long pause, so long Dean almost thinks the angel didn't hear him. "It doesn't matter if we leave."

"But they know we're here, so we've gotta keep moving."

"I think it's a good thing."

"What?" he catches Dean off guard again.

"That there are no monkeys. They'd just get eaten." He unconsciously adjusts the trench coat he's still wearing and turns towards Dean, looking up.

"Dude, we really gotta go." Dean shuffles anxiously, glancing around. The red eyes are getting closer.

"Of course," Castiel responds this time, and Dean reaches down a hand to help him up. He takes it, and Dean suddenly feels as though he's been punched in the gut.

He cast about, gasping, to realize that Cas is now standing up and they're beside a different tree.

"Dude, you can't do that!" Dean reacts as soon as he catches his breath.

"You wanted to move," and now he's confused, his head tilted in his typical quizzical expression.

"Yeah, like, move. Run. Not angel-teleport."

"Oh." Castiel stands there a minute. "Sorry."

* * *

They're still alive days/weeks/months later, when they realize they can't keep running forever and fight off their first _thing_. Castiel appears to have given up on his no-fighting resolution (admittedly, these are extenuating circumstances) since he pulls it off Dean and brutally kills it with a dead branch.

Dean picks himself off the ground and just looks at Cas. Cas just picks up the branch and keeps walking.

It's times like those when he's glad to have the angel with him, those periods of lucidity when Cas is back to being a warrior, a soldier, and a friend. Then there are times when it seems like the angel has so many screws loose it might be a mercy to kill him.

When he isn't lucid, he alternates between apathetic, panicked and completely out there. Apathetic is when he sits down and decides he doesn't care that he's going to get ripped to shreds and Dean has to drag him along to prevent him from turning into something's lunch. When he panics, it's all Dean can do to hang on while the angel teleports wildly and flails at the shadows.

Then there's the times when he's less sure that Cas has completely lost it and more sure that's he's just a little mixed up. Like when they are attacked by strange little primates with long, hooked yellow nails and bright red eyes. The claws seem filthy, and they're plenty scratched up by the time the last one has been beat to death. Ordinarily, Dean would be worried about some sort of demon pestilence, but he's pretty sure it couldn't get much worse than it is.

"Dean?" Cas asks, as they stand around the hideous corpses and catch their breath. "They look like monkeys. I didn't think there would be monkeys here. Just tigers."

"Tigers?" Because they've ran into a heck of a lot of things, some of it recognizable, some of it so twisted that it's beyond even guessing what it once was, but he's pretty sure tigers weren't part of it.

He seems pretty checked out at the moment, staring up at the sky (Dean's decided it isn't worth coming up with another name for it) with his hands in his pockets. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night."

"Ah." The rhyme strikes a faint chord, and he knows he's heard it before, and obviously Cas has too. "In the forests of the night."

* * *

Time passes, Dean has no idea how much. His sleep is always brief, fitful, awoken by Cas and teleported without warning. Then they keep moving, desperate and fighting. He's hungry, but he doesn't seem to need to eat, which is some small mercy given as there doesn't seem to be any food. He supposes all the monsters here just eat each other.

The panic goes away first. He isn't sure how long it is since the last time Cas started trying to run away, spooked by something, but he notices it stops. The apathy next; Cas is as eager as he is to survive, to move.

Then one night, and there's a mutated version of a Wendigo and they're fighting it, and the angel grapples with it while Dean searches desperately for some sort of fire. He ends up attacking it just to keep it from killing Cas, and the angel turns and is holding a burning branch and then the monster is burning at their feet.

He doesn't say anything about monkeys or insects or tigers. He just puts out the flames when the thing is nearly ash.

"Let's keep going," Castiel says, and just like that Dean knows he's back.

"Yeah, sure."

They don't talk about it. They don't need to.

* * *

Desperation eventually ensues.

They are continually battered, scraped, beaten, exhausted. Spattered in the blood of monsters and their own blood, and running. Always running.

When Dean can sleep, he drifts off instantaneously, and is always plagued by nightmares until Castiel wakes him and they're off again.

He thinks about Sam. He thinks about how to escape. He thinks about dying.

Dying. Here.

It's only a matter of time, he eventually figures. They try to move in just one direction, as if hoping to come to an end. But they can't find one, like they're caught up in a dark giant sphere and there is no way out. And Cas is limping and Dean is bleeding and there is no way out.

He figures it will happen soon. The monsters will surround them, and they'll die surrounded by red eyes and dead trees and just be another couple of corpses to litter the floor.

A couple of corpses, in the forests of the night.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Continuing on popular demand. Edited to fix the formatting issues.**

Every time Dean wakes up, he is shocked that he is still alive. The monsters are always nipping at their heels even when they're running, and he's continually surprised that one of them hasn't gotten the drop on him and eaten his organs. He figures they must be keeping a pretty low profile, or maybe Cas is just giving them that scary look (although it never seems to work when he's awake).

When he wakes by himself, for once, it is because a spray of warm monster blood has just struck his face. He scrambles to his feet and grabs for one of the wooden stakes they've made during their time in purgatory (once it had been decided, silently, that makeshift clubs weren't going to cut it) and finds it not there. The reason for that would be his angel, who is holding both of them and slashing brutally at a hissing denizen whose former identity Dean doesn't even want to guess at.

His angel. It's been a while since Cas has been that.

He doesn't dwell on that too long, though, because his angel or not, Cas isn't going to be around much longer if he doesn't get some help. He's been limping for a few days, and while they don't bring up their respective injuries, it's slowing him down. Just like the sluggishly oozing wound on his abdomen is slowing Dean down.

He whirls and snaps a hefty branch off one of the ever-present dead trees and throws himself into the fray, clocking the thing on the back of the head. It snarls and turns, giving Cas a chance to get a good stab in. It roars, and Dean slams the chunk of wood into its face.

It staggers then, and Cas plunges one of the crudely fashioned stakes into its chest. It growls, or at least Dean's pretty sure that's what it was supposed to be, but it comes out more like a strained gurgle and the thing topples, the blood streaming from its chest and staining Castiel's hands.

They stand there, silent, catching their breath, before he speaks. "You're awake."

"Uh, yeah." Because what else can he say, really? "This happen a lot?"

The angel shrugs. "No more than can be expected."

Dean's pretty sure this is angel-speak for 'every freaking night'. "Why don't you rest one night, let me keep watch?"

"I do not require sleep."

It sure looks like you could use it, he thinks, but he doesn't voice this. Mostly because Castiel is stubborn and he's not sure he could keep the things off them all by himself for…however long he normally sleeps, anyway. He used to ask how long he'd been resting, but neither of them could keep any accurate count of anything—whether minutes or days. They stopped for sleep whenever Dean could go no longer without it, not when the sun set.

There was no sun.

* * *

Dean is pretty sure it is getting darker. He'd thought it creepy, at first, when he could see with no light source. But he's starting to miss it, because he's pretty sure the shadows are getting darker and the trees are looming more and the ground beneath his feet is shakier and he can't see more than a couple feet ahead of him.

"Hey, uh, Cas," he brings it up. "You starting to notice we can't see?"

"I'm sorry," the angel says, and Dean just stares at him.

"Dude, why are you frickin' sorry? Not like you're making it darker."

"I'm not," Cas agreed, "but I'm not making it lighter."

"Sorry?" Because he had thought Cas had recollected his marbles, but now he isn't so sure.

"I was…letting us see," Cas admits, and suddenly it makes sense to Dean, "But...I'm sorry, I'm getting too weak."

"Hey. No big deal." And Dean is a bit struck by the fact he'd just been walking around letting Cas expend his energy on this while the angel said nothing.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, and Dean turns and catches him by the shoulder.

"Hey. Not like I was doing anything, was I? Stop being sorry." They stare at each other for a second, a minute, before they turn and keep walking.

The silence is making Dean's skin itch. "We'll figure something out," he assures Castiel, even though he has no idea what. He gets the idea when they are alerted of the next encroaching monster by the gleaming eyes.

To his credit, Castiel finds a suitable stick to impale the eyes on when Dean cuts the first pair out.

* * *

The next sign Dean gets that his angel is fading is when they stop teleporting. When he wakes up, Cas hauls him to his feet instead. "We need to run," he says, seriously, and Dean knows that he means 'run' quite literally.

"You okay?" he asks, when they've stopped and he's got his breath back but Cas hasn't.

"I am fine," he insists, but makes no effort to straighten. Maybe he knows Dean wouldn't believe it anyway.

"Dammit, Cas," he snaps, and the angel visibly flinches and Dean relents slightly. "You gotta take a break."

"When I am dead," he responds, and Dean isn't sure if he's being serious or if it's a poor attempt at humor. Either way, it effectively ends their conversation, but when they stop to rest again, Dean suggests that Cas sit down.

"I'll keep an eye on things," he promises, and Castiel slumps down against a tree. He doesn't sleep, but his eyes are glassy and he's so out of it he might as well be. Dean holds a stake in one hand and their skewer of glowing red eyes in the other and waits for the other shoe to drop.

He dispatches a violent rat-creature after what feels like a few hours, and becomes aware of a dull ache in his side. Upon examination, he notes the wound in his side has split open again and is oozing blood. The skin about it is red and inflamed, and when he moves too suddenly, a jab of pain shoots up his side.

"Well, damn."

* * *

Another indefinite period of time later, he has traded the wound on his side (barely healed) for a series of slashes on his shoulder and a couple of broken ribs. For his part, Cas is still limping, and Dean is beginning to worry that whatever damage was dealt to his leg isn't going to go away by itself.

That's hardly their worst problem at the moment, though, because if he could compare this _thing_ to any species known to man, he would say _dragon_. Only it's not exactly breathing flame so much as gushing it from its eye sockets and Dean is almost happy to see some form of light that isn't gleaming red or draining Castiel's life away until the thing attacks them, slashing with razor sharp talons and snarling with hooked yellow fangs.

"What—is—this?" He gets out between struggling for breath and dodging a swipe of its spiked tail.

"Tiger?" Cas suggests, deadpan, and Dean almost grins.

"I wish."

He has to admit, the black sludge and flames it explodes into when they finally finish it off are pretty impressive, even when scrambling to light up a torch (it might not last forever, but it would be handy while it lasted). The corpse burned quickly, and Dean had the feeling that the icy, eternal night quenched fire faster than it should.

"So, tiger, huh?" he asks, as they crouch by the dying embers and try to enjoy the warmth while they can.

"In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?" Castiel quoted, eyes locked on the struggling flames that look like they're having the life choked out of them.

"Huh." He sits there for a minute, absorbing it. "What's the next bit?"

"On what wings dare he aspire? What the hands dare seize the fire?" He speaks quietly.

Dean feels the need to continue, but doesn't know the rest, so he repeats the lines that have stuck in his head from before. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night."

Their eyes lock on each other as the last of the flames fades to nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long. I'm hoping for two to come out this weekend, ****and then an epilogue next week. Also, thanks to my friend Fisher for monster ideas and to everyone who reviewed! I love reviews. (hint hint)**

Purgatory had always been miserable, hopeless, an endless punishment for some perceived wrong with no escape. But thinking about it, Dean figures that this was the moment everything really went to hell.

(And Dean's been to hell. Dean knows.)

But when it looms over them, he is filled with a rush of pure dread. There is no way out of this one. This thing is going to kill him, he just knows it.

He freezes in sheer terror. The thing is coming down upon him, and there is nothing he can do.

Dean's reverie breaks when Castiel throws himself between him and the thing. Abruptly, it is blocked from view, and the hulking beast with the crusty translucent skin and huge, pulsating heart he can see through its chest is no longer so paralyzing. It is a monster, nothing more.

It tosses Cas aside like a rag doll with a hooked claw, and Dean snatches up the stick he'd dropped and lunges at the exposed heart. He can swear he can see the veins and he wants to run away—

Dean drops his gaze from the heart, and the unnatural panic fades. So that was it. He'd have to go in blind. Avoiding the view of his target, he throws himself at the monster, which snarls and flails its claws at him as he stabs it in the chest. The transparent exoskeleton crunches, and then crumbles, under the force of the blow, which sends the tip of the stake deep into the creature's heart.

It collapses, forcing Dean to jump backward to avoid being crushed under its tremendous bulk. It really is grotesque, he decides, examining its insectoid limbs and hideous chest. The fear it projected has vanished with its death, and he feels only a sense of triumph and relief as he looks down at the corpse.

"Hey, Cas, thanks. Don't think I've met one that does that before," Dean calls, in an attempt to sound cavalier, when the truth is the angel just saved his life, again.

What bothers him is that the angel doesn't answer. Castiel has always been pretty good about taking the life saving thing in stride, so it prompts Dean to turn around.

What he sees is his only ally lying in a crumpled heap on the ground.

"Shit."

* * *

"Cas, come on." He turns Castiel over onto him back, and the angel lets out a small cry as he is forcibly uncurled from the fetal position. "You're okay."

In fact, he isn't, but he doesn't bother to correct Dean. "Humans…have such odd ideas," he manages, and Dean is a little startled.

"Sorry?" Dean is less focused on the delirious ramblings and more on the gaping wound in his friend's side that was left by the monster's gigantic claw.

"Many…seem to believe…that He could create no monsters. Could bring no darkness. Could do no wrong."

"Not following, Cas. Can we, uh, worry about the fact you're dying, here? Then focus on why we're stupid little apes."

He's pretty sure the angel doesn't even hear him. His eyes are glazed, fixed on some point off in the darkness.

"Come on, Cas," he repeats, pressing his hands down over the wound. He's unsure if it's the angel or his vessel bleeding, but either way it doesn't mean anything good. The blood is coming out pretty steadily. "Hang in there."

It isn't the first wound they've gotten, but it's the first one that isn't internal that is bad enough to necessitate bandages. Bandages that they don't have.

Dean swears again, casting about for something, anything he can use. He could use the angel's trench coat, but sterile it is not. Well, nothing he used would be, but the combination of fresh and dried monster blood that it has collected is more than a little off-putting.

"Cas, hey, look at me." Castiel's eyes, already glassy, seem to be dimming. "Come on, Cas!"

He would have thanked God for what happened next, had he thought God had anything to do with it. As it is, he's pretty sure it's just his angel whose eyes refocus and who gasps in pain.

"Sorry, dude, hang in there, I need…" and he's not sure what he needs except maybe bandages and a way out of here and something to hope for.

"Close your eyes," the angel manages, and Dean follows his command automatically. Even with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he can feel the blinding brilliance on the other side of them as Cas reverts to 'angel form'. When the brightness has faded, he opens them to see the angel is still on the ground and soaked in blood, though the wound has sealed itself.

"Didn't know you still had enough-" here he gestures in a futile attempt to fill in the concepts he has no words for "-angel juice to do that."

"My grace is faded," the angel admits, and Dean can hear the wheeze in his breath and see the pallor of his face. "But I am okay."

"Good," and Dean feels a rush of relief. Castiel is okay, he is okay, and they will keep going. "Good."

* * *

"So, uh," they've been trekking through the forest for several hours more, and Castiel is breathing heavily and moving more sluggishly. Dean's wounds are bothering him again, the broken ribs making his sides ache while the still-healing gashes occasionally send shooting pain up his abdomen, and he knows the angel has had even less time to heal. "What were you saying earlier, about us being stupid apes or whatever?" He's reaching for any conversation topic he can find that will take his friend's mind off the pain he's in.

"Humans seem to think that God can do no wrong." His tone is sharper. "That he has made all good in the world, and nothing bad."

"Well, yeah, people kind of like to think he's looking out for us." Dean struggles to phrase it so Castiel will understand. "Besides, isn't that kind of true? You know, the not-doing-a-good-thing isn't the same as doing-a-bad-thing?" He figures Cas is still bitter about the Almighty's blatant lack of attention during the apocalypse, and figures he has a right to be.

But he shakes his head. "No, not just that. That he has created all the good, the people and the flowers and the light, but not the bad, the monsters and the poison and the dark."

"Well, you know, the whole dark is just the absence of light thing? Maybe…the bad things aren't God, just the lack of." Dean has never been a real believer, but he's consistently found nothing worse than an angel losing faith in God. If he could restore the confidence Cas had felt in his mission, in his father, and in himself the angel had possessed when Dean first met him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

"He has not just made good things," Cas shook his head. "That is not in his nature."

"Give me one thing that doesn't make sense about that," Dean tells him. He's a little injured that his attempts to comfort the angel have been so easily brushed aside.

"That monster, it frightened you."

"Not really," Dean protests, "It just sort of…mind-zapped me. I wasn't scared of it."

"But you felt fear," Castiel clarifies.

"Well, yeah."

The angel looks abruptly weary, stopping and turning, and he looks small and pitiful and alone in the near darkness, hands in the pockets of his blood soaked coat. "God made that creature. He built it." Cas shudders. "And what shoulder, and what art, could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand? and what dread feet?"

Dean started to speak, realizing Cas was quoting again, but the angel wasn't done. "He did. He made it, and He made here, for the monsters. He made hell, Dean, and purgatory, and every monster you have ever faced. My father made all those things, everything wrong with the world and everything right."

"There's a lot of right," Dean offers another platitude he doesn't really believe, but he isn't sure he can handle Cas's crisis of faith right now.

"There is more wrong," Cas shakes his head. "What kind of person would make a creature like that?" Cas turned and continued to walk, but glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Dean was following. After a moment, he turned again to Dean, and asked him quietly, "What kind of person would make a creature like me?"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Just one more**** after this, and an epilogue! Thank you to Eryaforsthye, Psychee, Miss Mudblood and Anna Darsin for reviewing the last chapter. I've gotten four for each chapter, and I'd love to get at least five for this one! Thanks so much for sticking with me. Also, some swearing here, but with Dean talking a lot, it became unavoidable.**

"Cas…" Dean can only trail off, watching the exhausted angel. He's never seen anyone look so defeated.

"I have…I have done everything wrong," Castiel admits. "I have turned on you, turned on my Father, on everyone…I sided with humanity only to declare myself above them. How could God make a creature like me?" He stares at his hands, tone dripping with disgust.

"Not everything," Dean argues. "You pulled me out of hell, Cas, and you saved Sam, and you helped stop the fucking apocalypse!"

"When I saved Sam, he had no soul," Castiel points out. "And I was hardly effective against the apocalypse."

"You pulled me out of hell," Dean repeats, sticking to the one argument that is still standing.

"That is…one of the few things I do not regret," Castiel admits. "I have killed…too many. I have done too much wrong. There is no one I have not betrayed. You, and Crowley, and Balthazar," he looks frankly pitiful. "Perhaps I deserve this."

"The hell?" Dean is on his feet in an instant, despite his aching limbs. "You don't deserve this, Cas."

"Purgatory is a place for monsters," he spoke gravely. "I am one."

"You are not a monster, Cas!" Dean knows he's being louder than he shoulder be, but he can't help but feel like he has every right to be. "If you deserve this, I do, too."

"No, Dean," and Cas is shaking his head. "You have always done the right thing. You have not turned on your friends, or murdered thousands, or…no. You should not be here."

"God damn it, Cas, you're not a monster!" He's shouting now. "You are not a monster!"

The angel is remarkably calm. "If it helps you sleep better at night," he says mildly, and Dean wonders if he's simply too tired to argue, or if he's trying to be condescending, or if he really thinks he has no right to argue with Dean.

"Cas…" he starts but trails off, but has no idea what to say.

There is rustling in the forest around them, then, and Castiel breaks in. "We need to keep moving," he comments, still quiet. He stands with obvious effort. "I believe the monsters heard you."

Dean just counts himself lucky that Castiel didn't say "other monsters". Yet.

* * *

The forest is darker than it has ever been, and Dean is struggling not to trip over his own feet, or the gnarled roots and sharp stones that mar the path. He'd ask Cas to maybe turn the lights up a bit if he wasn't already for obviously drained, pale and wide-eyed as he practically dragged his somehow still-injured leg behind him and gasped for breath. Dean was pretty sure he hadn't fully healed from their latest monster, either, even after doing his angel trick.

He wants to say something to make Castiel feel better, but he can't even comfort himself, and he knows anything he says will sound fake. Hell, he was the one yelling at Cas that the Leviathans were his fault, that he needed to clean up his mess. Cas knows that Dean knows what he's done.

He didn't realize the angel was kicking himself over everything this much, though. That Cas thought he deserved this.

Dean is distracted from his thoughts when he trips over a particularly large root that he can't see. He swears when he hits the ground, and Cas turns around, and naturally that's when the screaming leathery thing swoops down from above.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean snarls, as he struggled to pick himself up and attack the thing at the same time. His stake was broken, left in the chest of the insect fear monster, and they'd neglected to make a new one. He's going to pay for it now, he realizes, as the gashes on his side split open yet again while the thing sinks its fangs into his shoulder.

Cas stabs at it with the stake, but it's a pretty weak attempt and largely ineffectual against the bat monster they're now facing. It swings around for another attack, and Cas tosses his weapon to Dean, who may be scrabbling in the dust but isn't nearly as drained.

It evidently didn't expect Dean to be armed, because it snarls in surprise when he jabs it in the eye. Yellow liquid sizzles on the tip of the wood, probably reacting with the blood that is already there. It rears back and tries to get in another chomp, but Dean is ready and wields the stick like a baseball bat, slamming it in the side of the head and sending it whirling away.

It tries to make another pass, but Cas hisses, "Aim for the wings," and Dean slashes through the leather like it is paper, shredding the batlike flaps that are keeping it aloft. Their attacker collapses to the ground, howling, and drops to all fours before racing off into the night like a large, malformed rodent as opposed to a large, malformed bat.

Once it is gone, the adrenaline fades, and Dean rocks back on his heels. His side is throbbing again, and his shoulder is laced with pain from the bite. "What the hell was that?" he asks out of habit, even though it's unlikely that Castiel knows.

He's surprised that Cas answers. "A harpy," he responds. "Servants of hell, generally unintelligent. That one was…larger, than most."

"You've seen them before?" he is even more surprised by this.

"Yes," he is frank. "When I rescued you."

"Oh," and he feels somewhat stupid. Maybe he has seen them before too, although of the things that happened in hell, the creatures were probably the least of his worries. "What is it doing here?"

"It was most likely deemed…untrainable, by the demons," Cas conjectures, with a half shrug to indicate he's not sure.

"Huh." They're both quiet for a minute. "What does a trained one look like?"

"Much the same," the angel informs him. "But it attacks on command."

"Great," he throws out, sarcastically, before they lapse once more into silence.

* * *

They walk a little farther, until they're both too exhausted to keep going, and then sit down and replace their weapons. Dean's is snapped in half and buried in a monster's chest, Cas' is half-eaten-away by the acidic eye fluid that coats the tip. It takes longer than he would like to find suitable sticks, and even longer to chip away the end into a suitable point, although it might just be his aching limbs and heavy eyelids that make every movement seem like lifting a mountain.

It's finally done, and he curls his fingers around the stake, determined to be ready for the next monster, while slumping back against a tree.

"You should sleep," Castiel tells him, and Dean wants to refuse, but he really can't, because he's already drifting off.

When Dean wakes, it's a pleasant surprise, because they're not being attacked. He sits up, and notes that he can see better than before—Castiel is recovering, at least marginally, from his injuries.

"How long did I sleep?" he asks, even though he thought he'd long since broken the habit. The angel only shrugs in response, which Dean expected the second the words were out of his mouth.

"I…cannot keep track of time, here." He sounds almost apologetic.

Dean realizes the thought of escaping has faded into a barely-there hope. He can't see a way out, anymore. "You think we'll ever get out of here?"

"I don't know," Cas' voice is dull. "We could die, I suppose. It would get you out, at least."

"Sorry, I thought dying wasn't part of the plan!" Dean snaps.

"You would go to Heaven," Cas continues as if Dean hadn't spoken. "I'd probably stay here."

"Look, Cas, we're not dying, and if you did, you wouldn't go to Purgatory. You're not a monster."

Castiel shrugs.

"Look, nobody's perfect, okay? What has God done that's so great? He made all this shit, he better take care of it! And it shouldn't be your job to do his job. He should be stopping the apocalypse, dealing with the crazy angels. For all this Purgatory is for monsters thing, seems like he ought to be closer to here than to heaven!" Dean is practically snarling, because he needs to get it into Cas' head. "I forgive you, okay! And you can't keep thinking that you let down your Father or whatever, because if it's such a big deal, where is he!"

Castiel says something, very quietly, that Dean misses. "Sorry?"

"…I believe in Him."

"What?" Dean can't believe this.

"What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, dare its deadly terrors clasp?" Castiel is reciting again. "He may have made monsters…but I, I might be one too. He may have abandoned us, left us to die, to take care of ourselves against things He created, but…I believe in Him."

"Why?" Dean demands.

The angel fixes him with haunted eyes. "What else is there to believe in?"


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: If anything is discouraging, it is getting no reviews.**** Which is, in fact, what happened. A combination of this and a busy real life have contributed to me not being done until now. Well, here's chapter five. Epilogue will follow soon. Please, please review—it's the only way I know if you like it! Even just a sentence is awesome.**

They don't speak again after that, not for a long while. Dean is exhausted, beaten down by their seemingly endless time in Purgatory, a time that could be days or weeks or months or years on Earth but feels like an eternity to him now. He has nothing left to give—certainly nothing to give hope to the equally exhausted, utterly disillusioned angel.

The light goes in and out around him, as Castiel struggles to maintain the foggy glow. It's disconcerting, Dean feels, that he could plunge into total darkness at any moment, should Cas's strength suddenly give out. He's actually surprised that he isn't more worried, before it occurs to him that, despite everything, he trusts the angel. Trusts him that he won't panic and teleport away again, abandoning him as he had in the first moments of their imprisonment. Trusts that he won't leave him to the monsters, that he won't dismiss the light and let Dean flounder until he is eventually consumed in the blackness.

It's actually nice, he decides. The soul speck of good in what has been close to hell. He trusts Castiel again, something he wasn't sure he could ever do after the Leviathans, the betrayal, what he had done to Sam. Sam, Sam was his family. Anyone who hurt Sam should never be forgiven, never be spoken to again….shouldn't he never let Cas forget what he did?

But he has. Maybe it was necessity; maybe it's just a delusion, a trust that will fade as soon as they escape from the twisted shadowy forest. But maybe….maybe it's because Cas is family too.

He drifts over towards the angel, who is fixing his eyes to the ground, putting one foot in front of the other as though it takes all his energy and concentration. It probably does. He rests a hand on his shoulder.

Cas looks up, surprised. Shocked, even, that Dean is acknowledging him. And Dean remembers why he has forgiven Cas—because Cas will not forgive himself.

"Hey," Dean says, greeting him calmly, casually. He's not going to outright tell the angel that he's forgiven, turn this into a chick flick or a heartfelt speech. But he hopes the angel knows he is forgiven.

"Hey," Cas responds, and it's less natural, a lot stiffer, with just a tiny hint of a question in it, and his eyes are incredulous, because he does, in fact, understand.

He just thinks Dean is wrong.

He might be a bit stubborn or a bit competitive, but Dean decides, right there, that he's going to change Castiel's mind.

* * *

The most horrifying monster they meet is not particularly frightening. It has no yellow claws, hooked fangs, massive beating heart, or flaming eye sockets. It does not flap batlike, mutant wings or come swooping from above.

It is a man.

The man is not particularly frightening, either, as though he has not been in purgatory long enough for his feature to twist like the features of the other monsters, for his limbs to grow crooked like the ever-reaching limbs of the dark, dead trees. His spit does not sizzle and eat away at the ground, and his roars do not shake the trees like wind, if wind ever dared to blow through.

His eyes, though, are terrifying.

They are not swallowed-up blackness like the eyes of a demon, all shiny and buglike. They are not red and glowing like the eyes that are always watching them from the darkness. They are simply eyes.

But they do shine and glow, but with no color, simply pure menace. The unparalleled hate that stares out of them is more frightening than the ink or the flames.

He shudders to think what this man could do, would do. Not more than the monsters, who would tear them limb from limb and eat their hearts, he knows. But they would do it on instinct, on the flames of heat and survival.

This man would do it gleefully.

He is ragged, his skin is pale. His clothes is torn and filthy, his feet bare and bloody from the roots he is no doubt tripping over. His nails are caked with dirt and dried blood. His shirt is in rags, completely torn away from one shoulder, which is lacerated. The wounds are untreated and festering, virtually rotting away. Peeking through the few fibers that remain and the reeking flesh, Dean can see the white bone.

The hate in his eyes flickers, replaced with uncertainty—something in his animalistic, desperate mind seems to convey recognition. He raises a hand to shield his eyes.

"Why…why is it so bright?" He sounds lost, almost frightened, and if not for his grotesque appearance Dean would feel bad for him. Because Dean is lost and barely surviving here by himself, and he can hardly believe that someone else is still here, alive. With no Cas and no light.

"…you are unaccustomed." Dean is on guard, but can feel only pity for the broken creature before him. But Castiel, who responds, sounds vaguely monotone.

"Who are you?" The man suddenly snarls. "It does not matter!" He charges at them, and Dean swings the newly made stake at him, impaling him in the eye. No acidic fluid spews out, merely blood and aqueous substances that dampen the tip of the wood and hit the dirt, raising tiny dust clouds around the point of impact.

The man howls and staggers back. Castiel casually raises a hand to snap his neck (Dean would intercede, but he feels that it would be more like putting him out of his misery than anything else) and then pauses.

"Where did your friends go?" His eyes seem to sharpen. "There is a way out."

"They've left me behind," he snaps, and his eyes take on a maddened gleam. "But I have shown them."

"The hell?" Dean articulates, but the man lunges again, and Cas catches him by the throat and snaps the man's neck with his own forward momentum.

"He was traveling with others," Castiel informs him, casting no backward glance to the lifeless body and quickening his pace. "He would be dead otherwise. We have made his end much less unpleasant than it would have been had he been left."

"Cas, the hell is going on?" Dean is irritated.

"There is a way out of purgatory; the very point is that it is temporary. Should one prove themselves, they will be freed." And Dean has no idea what Cas is talking about now, or if he's caught their latest assailant's crazy disease, but he's willing to buy into this for now. The damn bible said it was temporary, didn't it?

"Sure, so how do we prove ourselves?"

"The man said he'd been abandoned. Others escaped; he told us as much. He was not alone for long, or he would be dead. We follow the path he took to us."

"Yeah, how?" Dean groans.

"There is blood, in the dirt. Human."

"And you can tell it from monster…how?" He wishes the angel could explain it in one go so he wouldn't have to drag this out piece by piece.

"It is…corrupted. Tainted. But not wholly wrong."

"So, angel-sense, that's what you're saying?" Dean demands.

"I…if you want to call it that, yes." Castiel agrees.

* * *

They follow the blood. The trail is initially intermittent, hard to follow, but they reach a point where the droplets grow larger and then turn into a steady stream. There is more of it, but it is dry, caked into a jagged rust-red line where the man wavered back and forth along his course.

"Here," Castiel says, and Dean notes it has grown brighter.

"You doing that?" But the angel shakes his head, and Dean edges cautiously forward, but no lightning bolt comes down to zap him, so he enters the clearing.

It is bright, a glow emanating from nowhere, although the trees around are still black and twisted and the sky is still an endless expanse of ink. The body of a man, ill-kept and dirty, lies on the ground. Blood trickles from not-too-fresh wounds, pooling around him. His body appears to have been gnawed by several critters. Wherever the glow comes from, it doesn't keep the monsters away.

"So, what?" Dean spreads his hands.

Cas points at the ground, which is unremarkable packed dirt edged by creeping roots except for two stone crosses. They are etched with lettering in a language that Dean can't read (that looks vaguely like Latin).

Castiel scans them quickly (he can apparently read the lettering) and appears to consider it.

"How do we get out of here?" Dean asks, because he knows he is impatient but he can't stand the thought of being trapped here any longer.

"They're instructions," Castiel notes. "Can't you read them?"

"Uh, no," Dean snaps. "They're in Latin or something."

"Oh," and Castiel fixes his gaze on him. "You should be able to—no, you have nothing to prove."

"What the hell are you saying?" Dean demands, but Castiel stonewalls him.

"I'll explain." Castiel turns and points. "Stand on that one."

"That what?" He knows, but he is already irritated by Cas not explaining.

"The cross, the one I'm pointing to." And Castiel turns around.

Dean does, but he argues again. "Look. You gotta let me know, Cas, what's going through your head right now?" Because this is honestly, irrevocably aggravating.

"And when the stars threw down their spears, and watered Heaven with their tears, did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?" The angel is almost absentminded, reciting it. He walks over to the other cross and looks at it.

"What, more poetry?" Dean snaps, "Come on, Cas, what are we doing?"

"To prove you don't deserve to be here, the instructions explain," he reluctantly tells him. "To prove you do not deserve purgatory, you first must prove you are not a monster."

"Yeah, that should be pretty easy," Dean bites out.

"You never were," Cas responds. "We are here from the weapon to kill the Leviathan, I released the Leviathan, I am responsible. You should not be here. That is why you cannot read the letters."

"So?" Dean shifts impatiently. "You aren't either."

"No, I'm not." Cas agrees, smiling slightly. It's somewhat disconcerting. "But we are here because of me, and I am proving it. The crosses are scales, and when one steps on the latter," he indicates the one he is standing next to, "It releases the person on the former. I am putting someone before myself. I suppose, in His eyes, I am no longer a monster." He steps calmly onto the stone. "Goodbye, Dean."

"Cas, you can't do this," Dean snaps, but even as he does he has the odd sensation of falling.

He awakens in a forest, propped up against a tree. Roots dig into his arms and dirt covers the ground.

He opens his eyes and sees the stars.

**A/N 2: Stay tuned for epilogue! Thank you for reading, and please review!**


	6. Epilogue

Dean doesn't dare to blink. He's afraid that as soon as he closes his eyes, the stars will all go out, simultaneously, and he's afraid to see that again.

Eventually, he closes them, acknowledging that if they do disappear, everything is shot to hell anyway, so what does it matter? He opens them again, and the stars are still there, tiny little beacons of life that he's always taken for granted.

He won't be doing that, anymore.

He just lies there, for a while (five minutes? An hour? Time is so unimportant now) before he hauls himself to his feet. As it turns out, he was lying in a little pseudo-woods beside a sewer masquerading as a ravine, and it takes less than five minutes to be stumbling along the main road.

His dazed mind kicks into action after a block or two of honking cars and dazzling city lights. He needs to do three things, he decides (it's ridiculous that something like this has become almost routine for him) and locates a dented, graffitied newspaper box along the way. It informs him that it has been nearly three months since he first arrived in the shadowy forest and that the road he is standing along is at least within the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, if not in the city itself.

Another block down, past the greens of sporadic trees, the blues of neon signs, the reds of the traffic lights, and the oranges of the taillights of cars that fly by, he finds a payphone. He digs in his pocket, noting a lack of anything, and drops the phone back down and keeps walking.

The city is much busier than the dusty stretch where he woke up last time, and there is not a convenience store to ransack. Instead, he ducks into a library and practically begs to use the phone.

"Please, I have to call my brother," and he can't tell whether this is a normally thing for the librarian or if he just looks that pathetic because she hands over the phone and then walks away while he calls. He's grateful for this—he can be a little less careful with his words.

"Hello?" Sam answers, and Dean's voice cracks as he answers.

"Hey, Sam, it's me."

There is a sound that makes Dean pretty sure that Sam dropped the phone, and then he's back on the line. "Dean?" Sam sounds incredulous, and he can't blame him.

"The one and only," he smirks, even if he doesn't really mean it.

"Where are you?" Sam demands, not wasting time on doubtfulness and the like. If something was impersonating Dean, it wouldn't be the first time, but it also wouldn't be the first time it really was his brother. And Sam was a bit too desperate to question it too much.

"Uh," and Dean casts around looking for a sign. Metal lettering on the wall above the door catches his eye. "Uh, Nashville Central Library."

"I'm, like, twenty minutes out of town," Sam tells him. "On my way. What happened?"

"Uh, explain later," he says, since the librarian is coming back around.

"Okay."

"Bye." He hangs up. "Thanks," he turns to the woman who he'd spoken to before. "Is there a computer I can use?"

She points, and he walks over and pulls open Google. He types everything he can remember into the search box, and it doesn't take long for him to pull up the poem.

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? _

_In what distant deeps or skies  
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?  
On what wings dare he aspire?  
What the hand dare seize the fire? _

_And what shoulder, & what art.  
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?  
And when thy heart began to beat,  
What dread hand? & what dread feet? _

_What the hammer? what the chain?  
In what furnace was thy brain?  
What the anvil? what dread grasp  
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? _

_When the stars threw down their spears,  
And watered heaven with their tears,  
Did he smile his work to see?  
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? _

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? _

He reads through it, once, twice, remembering the cold and the blood and the lack of hope and the lack of light.

Then he closes the window and walks out of the library, standing out in the parking lot until he can see the lights of the Impala coming up the drive.

**The End**

**A/N: Wow. This is over. Thank you for such an amazing reaction to the last chapter! Thank you to ****Izrafel, DeanCasLover22, sonofafluffymuffin, Arisprite, TripleLLL, Starseed123, hlytxaccountant, Apocalyxtic98, EarennielEchelon and musiclovesbest for reviewing. To everyone who expressed misgivings about the ending, I'm really sorry, but I'm afraid I couldn't make everything happy and rainbows. I wanted to, but this story did not lend itself to that.**

**The poem ****that is routinely quoted throughout is a real poem, The Tyger by William Blake. Aside from some punctuation and capitalization changes, the recitations here are the original. It, like Supernatural, does not belong to me.**

**I once again must apologize for the ending, but as you've probably noted, this story was supposed to end after the first chapter, with Dean and Cas trapped indefinitely.**** I wasn't sure how to end it entirely cheerfully, and didn't want to try. But I am open to writing a sequel. If you want to see one, let me know in a review or PM or answer the poll on my profile.**

**Thank you, everyone, for your readership, subscriptions, and reviews. I honestly didn't expect this and I'****m so grateful to everything. I'd love to hear your feedback on the whole story and on the epilogue, so please review, and thank you so much for all the support.**


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